Category Archives: blog

One of the ways Line of Sight Group keeps current on trends is to attend and sponsor key events in the local market. Last month, we had a chance to learn what was on the minds of professional researchers by attending and sponsoring the SLA-MN (Minnesota Chapter of the Special Libraries Association) and MALL (Minnesota Association of Law Libraries) Holiday Party.

The popular event, held annually, is open to all information professionals, librarians, researchers, knowledge managers, archivists, students, and guests. The social atmosphere brings like-minded professionals together to discuss various topics, including different research tools and information services, projects and opportunities, job openings and career paths, and others.

Guests also learned about new products and services at the Exhibitor Fair, featuring Line of Sight Group and other sponsors, and had the opportunity to place bids at the silent auction, benefiting the St. Catherine University SLA Student Group.

Additionally, this year’s Holiday Party was held at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Guests were invited to visit Mia’s galleries and tour Mia’s Art Research & Reference Library, one of the Midwest’s premiere research centers dedicated to the study of art.

It was great meeting so many wonderful attendees and sponsors at the SLA-MN and MALL Holiday Party. The gathering was fun for all and we would highly recommend it to anyone interested in attending next year!

Customer Experience is the area many retailers have chosen to compete on over the past few years. When it comes to shopping, it is breaking increasingly into “chore” vs. “cherish” activities. On the “chore” side, firms like Amazon offer commodity pricing, streamlined delivery, and voice recognition to make online ordering an easy experience for obtaining essentials. That leaves “cherish,” the type of shopping based on the discovery of interesting products and socializing them with others. This type of shopping is characterized by a great physical presence, unique items, and creating meaningful experiences. You’ll find artisan crafted products, hand-picked selections, custom built offers, or even built-by-the customer creations. How might a retailer best compete in the Customer Experience realm?

One of the first areas to consider is to understand the external environment. What are the trends and who are the competitors? Are there competitors offering something similar? How are they unique? What kinds of experiences do they offer? Are they competing on digital or physical experience or both or is it something else?

Next, savvy retailers track and map internal environment elements like customer journeys and voice of the customer as well as metrics like Net Promoter Score and Customer Satisfaction. Asking for feedback after every interaction or transaction is wearing customers down so building insight via analytics into the flow (that is not invasive) will be a key.

With external and internal environment insight in hand, retailers have a number of levers available to pull. Retailers can swiftly test and prototype various experience design elements using service blueprinting, bio-mimicry and design thinking. Some are using Virtual Reality to conduct their prototyping digitally as a first step. Capturing insight via primary and secondary research about the external and internal environment goes a long way towards creating a strategy to compete on customer experience as a differentiator in retail. Knowing the type of shopping that your current and future customers engage in can align your strategy and go-to-market initiatives on a path toward delivering meaningful and differentiated customer experiences in the digital and physical worlds.

Competing in the financial services industry can be as risky as it is broad. While the services of our clients in the financial services industry range from consumer finance to sophisticated back-office technology in the insurance industry, they all share a common challenge of dealing with quick, continuous and sometimes dramatic changes in the industry. Driven by government regulations, global economics, technology and many other factors, these organizations know that changes in their industry can happen swiftly and can devastate profits for those that misread the tea leaves. They also know that timely and objective knowledge and insight can help offset those risks and challenges.

In one financial services segment, our client deals with competitive offers and pricing that changes on a monthly basis or less. With the help of Line of Sight Group, however, managers know about the changes in near-real-time, and use the information to identify situations where they have a competitive advantage. They quickly funnel the information to their sales force who uses it to contact client prospects, confident that they have a true advantage to gain a new customer. This client conservatively estimates an ROI on the research and insight at over 20 to 1.

Late last year, another client asked Line of Sight Group to conduct a deep analysis on an adjacent market in which they were contemplating entry. In early 2017, they made the decision to go forward with the move and began maneuvering resources for the planned entry late this year. Not only did the analysis provide the support needed to make a confident strategic decision, it also provided guidance in the build-out phase to align products, pricing and positioning. The insight was further extended as education for the business development team about the market and how to out-sell the competition they were getting ready to face.

Still another client in the financial services technology sector, utilized our Competitive Landscape Program as part of its overall strategy formulation following a major restructuring. By gaining insight into the key growth strategies and buying criteria of buyers in its target segment, and overlaying that data with insight about its primary competition and its own competitive position (it is not the industry leader), management developed a variation of a ‘fast-follower’ strategy. Predicated on management’s understanding that they cannot predict the future and control the uncontrollable, and that the industry leader tends to respond sluggishly, they are building a competency that enables management to adjust its strategies based on a continuous ‘external learning loop’ focused on its industry and markets. This allows them to quickly identify and take advantage of new opportunities.

The stakes can be extremely high in the financial services industry with high capital intensity, powerful regulation and dynamic market and competitive factors. Because they are in the financial services industry, however, risk management is in their DNA. They understand how to manage market and operational risk, and understand that market and industry research is a vital component of their risk strategy. These firms also understand economics. They understand the value of accurate, timely and unbiased research and insight, and that the investment will pay dividends in both the short and long-term.

Last week, Line of Sight Group partnered with the Strategic & Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) Association to deliver a panel discussion to explore how various organizational roles define and use intelligence to formulate strategy and execute go-to-market initiatives. The panel consisted of practitioners from several industries and across several roles. There were panelists and attendees not only from SCIP but from other associations representing the roles we sought including Product Development and Management Association (PDMA), Customer Experience Professional Association (CXPA) and the Special Libraries Association (SLA).

The fast-paced discussion first explored what types of intelligence were needed. With so much data available from so many sources, there is a heightened importance for analyzing, synthesizing and making sense of it. Several ideas emerged from making it simple, visual, or put into the context of the consumer of the intelligence. One of the firms had operationalized this into Red, Yellow, and Green dashboards. Some added that storytellers could be employed to convey the messages and clues found in the intelligence. There was attention given to the ways that technology was impacting the field – several firms are using or are built on analytics. Others are starting to look at Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR).

There were some interesting examples, as well. One firm conducted Scenario Planning and accurately predicted the acquisition of Whole Foods by Amazon. Another example was that Red Roof Inns capitalized on the fact that 2% of all airline flights are cancelled and figured out a way to cater to temporarily stranded travelers yielding a very favorable business outcome.

Another aspect that emerged was the importance of building trust and collaborating amongst the various roles in research, product management, marketing, sales, customer experience and strategy formulation. With the advent of technology like cloud, mobile, big data and the aforementioned analytics, AI and VR, the notion of sustainable competitive advantage is challenged. This points towards an ongoing monitoring of the external environment to either avoid disruption or to get ahead of the curve and do some disruption.

The panel ended by sharing a list of helpful books:

The Amazon Way: 14 Leadership Principles Behind the World’s Most Disruptive Company by John Rossman

Line of Sight Group is proud to be part of SCIP Minnesota’s panel discussion later this month. President and Founder Steve Schulz will join other top experts in the competitive intelligence, product management, and customer experience arenas.

The discussion will touch on and provide insight on common challenges, including the type of intelligence leadership is looking for, and illustrate how top practitioners gather intelligence for internal use and on their competitors. Panelists will also illustrate some useful tips and tools that are used by top practitioners.

Line of Sight’s Market-i Competitive Intelligence Program is a SCIP “Endorsed” product. Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) is the nonprofit Association representing the Integrated Intelligence industry internationally for over 32 years.

I was talking with someone recently who wanted to accomplish three specific tasks – gather market intelligence, create competitive profiles and send out newsletters. As we talked further, we discovered that the three tasks were closely related. The conversation then shifted to what intelligence was needed and how would it be used?

In this situation, it probably makes sense to take one step back and conduct a Competitive Landscape Analysis using helpful frameworks like PESTEL and Five Forces. These types of analyses can narrow the focus and yield a specific set of competitors and trends to study and monitor.

Next, a knowledge portal, like Line of Sight Group’s Market-i Competitive Intelligence System, enables a way to organize, relate and contextualize all types of structured and unstructured intelligence. Using this system and the information garnered from the Competitive Landscape Analysis, a team could start gathering competitive intelligence, saving it, and then creating weekly newsletters, demonstrating swift value.

After several weeks or months, competitive profiles could also be created. As soon as these profiles were activated, all of the previously posted articles and artifacts could automatically link and append to the profiles. Similarly, any new intelligence added to Market-i would have immediate relevance and would add to the collective knowledge. The newsletter function could also include tips and techniques for using the intelligence as well as information regarding what to look for and how to capture it.

Knowing what you are looking for, why you need it, and how you will use it will allow you to architect a solution that will provide short and long term benefits. It also becomes more valuable with each new piece of intelligence, report or artifact added. Finally, an approach that includes both a push and a pull aspect helps ensure that there will be high levels of engagement. The total value can indeed be greater than that of the parts.

In my observation over the years in leading market research and intelligence efforts within organizations and then supporting them in a consulting role, I’ve observed how organizations tend to migrate along a ‘continuum’, based on their experience and skills in making data-driven strategic decisions.

Phase 1: Surprise! The initial realization that organizations need better knowledge and understanding of their external and competitive environment is when management experiences a significant surprise. This can be the appearance of a new competitor in their space, maybe through a partnership or acquisition. An example is the recent entry of Amazon into the grocery business through the acquisition of Whole Foods. Or it might be the loss of business at a loyal customer to an ‘irrational’ competitor, or simply growing price pressure caused by a value proposition that customers increasingly cannot discern as different from the competition. Whatever the cause, the general response in Phase 1 is to go overboard and ‘boil the ocean’ in an all-out/in-depth analysis to ensure it never happens again. Unfortunately, within months of completing this time consuming and expensive analysis, the external environment has continued to change bringing new potential surprises.

Phase 2. Dedicated Projects. The next phase on the continuum involves the realization that information and knowledge about a firm’s external environment can help manage risk and improve chances of success in its strategic ‘bets’. So instead of relying on gut feel, the organization conducts in-depth research to support and inform a strategic decision, usually related to combating a threat or taking advantage of a specific opportunity. These are one-time efforts designed to support a specific decision. In that way, they are highly valuable and actionable, and many organizations choose to stay in this phase. Again, the primary disadvantage with this approach is that the external environment does not stop evolving and changing. While the ‘snapshot’ analysis is valuable in supporting a specific decision, it gradually becomes obsolete as the environment changes.

Phase 3. Longitudinal Projects. After organizations have been conducting one-off research efforts for a while, they often identify some that they would like to repeat periodically. They may involve ongoing marketing or sales campaigns, for example, or existing products where pricing, features and enhancements change regularly. These periodic updates help managers keep a pulse on the changing external landscape, and make adjustments based on changing customer needs, competitor moves or changes in market or industry-level forces that affect strategic decisions. The primary disadvantage is that these updates generally look backward and decisions are based on what has happened rather than being future-based to include what is likely to happen.

Phase 4: Systematic Intelligence. As organizations see value in periodic updates, some move further to a systematic environment that involves continuous monitoring of threats and opportunities, regular updates, and an ongoing development of a strategic knowledge asset that is leveraged across the organization. Ongoing monitoring of leading indicators and patterns of changes in products and offerings, strategic assumptions, potential opportunities, threats and disruptors, and customer perception of the firm’s value proposition are designed to enable the organization to identify threats and opportunities earlier and to adjust its strategy quickly and effectively.

In order to get to this point, managers in these organizations start to develop a different mindset and an understanding that they cannot control how customers and ‘irrational’ competitors will behave in the future. They acknowledge that strategy is not perfect. They realize that, while their annual strategic plan is valuable for creating initial budgets and a list of important initiatives, they also need to have the capability and discipline to make strategic changes mid-stream and be able to justify them to the board using data. Managers shift their thinking to focus on the risks involved in the strategic choices (i.e.: placing bets) rather than insisting on proof that a given strategy will succeed.

This journey along the sophistication curve from episodic fixes to a data-driven culture of continuous knowledge and insight can be difficult for many organizations, but I’ve observed that those that make it to the systematic program level find a number of benefits:

Faster strategic response and first-mover advantages

Improved efficiency through a continuous process

Better communication and ‘line of sight’ for middle managers and others who support and execute strategic decisions

A knowledge asset that can be built upon and leveraged for innovation across the organization

In general, these organizations become more proactive by developing the capabilities to make hard strategic choices and ‘bets’ even as some things are unknowable and uncontrollable, and to adjust their strategies based on their own continuous learning about their external environment.

Disruption has always been the norm in the technology industry. As all industries embrace waves upon waves of new technology…initially in the Cloud and with Mobility, then Analytics and Big Data, and now Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality to name a few. Along with all of these advances also comes disruption.

Looking at the current state of the technology industry may reveal what is likely to happen in other increasingly technology-driven industries going forward. The Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA) has been tracking the largest 50 technology firms (IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Cisco, Amazon, Google, etc) for the last 10 years. In the 2013/2014 timeframe, the aggregate services revenue line of the 50 technology firms crossed and surpassed product revenue and has not looked back ever since. Services now comprise nearly 60 percent of the total revenue mix of this group. But, the air coming out of the product side of the balloon is more than the service side has put back in, so overall revenue is flat or declining for most technology firms.

Where is it all going?

As products have given way to services, services have led to a focus on experiences, and experiences have led to the goal of achieving favorable business outcomes. It is likely that shifts like this will cause organizations to fundamentally examine the actual business that they are really in.

In many cases, this calls for a change in the very business models upon which they have been operating under. Accelerating this change is the arrival of well funded “Tech” firms – start-ups with deep pockets, seasoned management and highly scalable business models. There are lots of FinTech, InsureTech, HealthTech, LegalTech, etc. firms coming onto the scene. You might think of it more broadly as “YourIndustry”Tech with a well-funded group of start-ups going after the most vulnerable and profitable chunks of your industry.

What to do?

The move toward services requires a new set of disciplines, processes, and methodologies as well as new ways of thinking vs. product management. The field of service design is garnering a lot of attention lately within organizations of all sizes. Concepts like Jobs-to-be-Done, Service Blueprinting, Journey Mapping, Human Centered Design, Biomimicry, Virtual Reality, Ethnography, and more are shaping the next wave of new service design. Some of these concepts are well established while others are quite new. How they are combined is the exciting part.

One of the most important things to do is to take a hard look at your external environment (competitors and trends) and thoroughly research the opportunities and threats that you are facing. Once identified, these can inform your strategy formulation – the arenas, vehicles, differentiation, sequencing and economic logic of how you plan to operate. Once the strategy is in place, the specifics of go-to-market initiatives can determine how to move forward. And it is likely that new forms of services will play an increasingly important role on your roadmap as you go forward.

Last week Line of Sight Group delivered a presentation to the local chapter of the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) entitled, “The Intersection of Strategy and Product Development/Management.” The event was held at Padilla in Minneapolis and attended by 50 product management and strategy practitioners. Line of Sight Group Founder and President, Steve Schulz, opened with the question, “what do these have in common?” The metaphorical slide had pictures of a dinosaur, a telephone booth and a Blockbuster Video storefront. All are now extinct, disrupted out of existence by stronger competitors that were better informed and equipped to survive. Why?

Doug Hedlund, Participating Faculty at the University of St. Thomas Opus School, offered the first part of the answer, a Strategy Formulation and Execution Discipline involving the capture of key factors (an organization’s vision, mission, core values and strategic goals), internal environment factors (strengths and weaknesses) and external environment forces (competition and trends) as inputs. Next, he walked through how the key factors inform the Strategy (Arenas, Vehicles, Differentiation, Staging and Economic Logic). Finally, he covered the execution levers (leadership, talent, organizational structure, systems/processes, and culture) and scorecard (metrics and dashboards) needed to successfully carry out the strategy.

Next, Schulz presented an interactive case study using the Strategy Formulation and Execution Discipline where the attendees helped to fill in the key inputs that shaped the strategy and execution. Schulz employed three useful frameworks to organize the external and internal data – PESTEL (Political, Economic, Societal, Technological, Environmental, & Legal) Analysis, Porter’s Five Forces Analysis and a Table Stakes Analysis in his presentation of the case.

Finally, Brett Norgaard, Line of Sight Group Principal, bookended the presentation with two stories highlighting the use of timely external environment intelligence leading to successful strategies and product launches under very different circumstances. (See Stealth and Telephone Switch blog entries.)

Starting with external environment research as the first step to creating a clear line of sight, from the inputs to the strategy formation and on through to the execution and measurement, ensures alignment of the strategic and go-to-market functions, including product development/management. Individuals that can identify and understand what is upstream and downstream from strategy formulation will be best positioned to help their organizations prevail and avoid extinction in increasingly disruptive times.

On Monday, Line of Sight Group attended the Product Conf 2017 put on by DevJam at the History Center in St. Paul. This year’s theme was “Product Chemistry.” There were several tracks of presentations focused on product management, business-based architecture, development operations, customer experience and user-selected topics. We jumped around to take in at least one in each area. Here are a few of the key takeaways:

Beware of lies disguised as statistics

Tell better stories

Look for problems – seen and unseen

Iterative design will take many unexpected turns

Focus on fewer, not more, ideas

Apply systematic innovation techniques to find the white space

Like fire, some products are discovered vs. invented

Construct the product roadmap by looking at problems in the context of customers before designing solutions

Anthropology can lead to sound insight about true behavior vs. asking alone

It was great to get away for a day, network, and think about how and why to connect the dots in the quest to create (or discover) new products.